Main menu

ALMS: Risi Competizione to skip Sebring, 2012 plans unsettled

The Risi Competizione Ferrari F458 Italia rounds a bend last year. On Friday, Risi Competizione said it would not be entering next month's 12 Hours of Sebring. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHY

American Le Mans Series regular Risi Competizione on Friday announced that it will not enter next month’s 60th-anniversary running of the 12 Hours of Sebring, the first round of the 2012 American Le Mans Series.

“Unfortunately the current economic climate has not allowed us to approach the 2012 season as we would have wished,” team principal Giuseppe Risi said. “None of us want to go into an event such as Sebring feeling less than 100 percent ready and prepared, and we aren’t at that point.

“Risi Competizione, racing with Ferrari, has been a stalwart of the series for the last decade, and we fully recognize the extremely high level of competition it supports. To race a Ferrari is to enter into a partnership with history and legend. The standards are so high that commitment must be total and complete. Risi Competizione knows better than many what it takes to win the 12 Hours of Sebring, and I feel that, right now, we wouldn’t be representative of our best.”

The Houston-based Ferrari GT team has not confirmed a program for the remainder of 2012 and said it is considering its options. According to a team release, those options “do not preclude entry to later rounds of the American Le Mans Series or other North American endurance races.”

Risi Competizione has won two ALMS championships, has taken three class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, achieved 20 outright ALMS class wins and scored more than 30 additional podium finishes. It has won the 12 Hours of Sebring three times, including the closest finish in the race’s history, in 2007.